Nth American Indian origins

[Julie]

Not attempting to change the subject, but I thought Prof might find this interesting:

Scientists Rebuild Iceman Genome From Hair Sample

Feb. 11) – An international team of scientists has rebuilt the genome of an ancient human for the first time. The man, dubbed Inuk, was a Palaeo-Eskimo who lived about 4,000 years ago on the western coast of Greenland.

Analysis of his genome, reported in the current issue of Nature, has given researchers new insights into the extinct Saqqaq culture – the first known to inhabit Greenland – but the work also revealed a variety of Inuk's physical traits. He had brown eyes, brown skin, shovel-shaped front teeth and a problem with dry earwax. He might have been going bald, too, but not completely. In fact, Inuk managed to leave behind a very valuable clump of hair.

The lead scientists on the 53-person team, geneticists Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen at the University of Copenhagen, found out about the hair, which had been excavated from permafrost in the 1980s, from an associate at the Natural History Museum in Denmark. One of the difficulties with analyzing ancient DNA is the risk of contamination from modern human DNA or damage inflicted by bacteria or fungi. But recent studies have shown that hair tends to protect DNA against the latter two threats.

Willerslev took special care to guard against contamination as his group analyzed the sample. Still, these were 4,000-year-old locks, so it wasn't perfect. "We were dealing with very, very short pieces of DNA," Willerslev says. "It was a massive puzzle of 3.5 billion pieces that you have to stick together in the right way."

That puzzle demanded help. Willerslev and his group did the initial analysis in Copenhagen, then shipped samples to labs in the United States, China, Great Britain and Australia; other scientists involved came from Estonia, France and Russia. "It was a huge amount of people involved in piecing all this together," he says.

The group analyzed more than 350,000 of the genome's single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. In modern people, scientists have been able to link these tiny variations in DNA to a number of characteristics, so Willerslev and his group scoured DNA databases for SNPs that Inuk shares with modern people.

The result was an unprecedented level of detail regarding the physical traits, metabolism and genetic predispositions of this ancient man. "I was actually quite surprised at the details we could get out of this," Willerslev says. "I think it's quite amazing that you could say that this guy had dry earwax."

Besides ear wax and skin color, the genetic detective work also allowed the scientists to determine how the Saqqaq relate to other ancient and modern people. They concluded that Inuk's ancestors migrated to the New World from Siberia more than 4,400 years ago. Previously, researchers contended that the Saqqaq people were ancestors of the Inuit and Native Americans of today, but the genetic analysis shows this is not the case. "It was very clear that he's not ancestral to modern people found in the New World," Willerslev notes. "His closest relatives are three Siberian groups."

Inspired by their success with Inuk, Willerslev and his team are now turning to a different continent. He plans to use similar techniques on 150 different ancient hair samples collected from all over South America, some of which date back 8,000 years. This next round of research will again address migration patterns, he says, but the scientists will also be exploring a phenomenon that could hold broader interest. "We're looking into the origin of clothes, and the clothes culture in the Americas."

Scientists Rebuild Iceman Genome From (Very) Old Hair Sample - AOL News

[Prof]

Not attempting to change the subject, but I thought Prof might find this interesting:

Scientists Rebuild Iceman Genome From Hair Sample

Feb. 11) – An international team of scientists has rebuilt the genome of an ancient human for the first time. The man, dubbed Inuk, was a Palaeo-Eskimo who lived about 4,000 years ago on the western coast of Greenland.

Analysis of his genome, reported in the current issue of Nature, has given researchers new insights into the extinct Saqqaq culture – the first known to inhabit Greenland – but the work also revealed a variety of Inuk's physical traits. He had brown eyes, brown skin, shovel-shaped front teeth and a problem with dry earwax. He might have been going bald, too, but not completely. In fact, Inuk managed to leave behind a very valuable clump of hair.

The lead scientists on the 53-person team, geneticists Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen at the University of Copenhagen, found out about the hair, which had been excavated from permafrost in the 1980s, from an associate at the Natural History Museum in Denmark. One of the difficulties with analyzing ancient DNA is the risk of contamination from modern human DNA or damage inflicted by bacteria or fungi. But recent studies have shown that hair tends to protect DNA against the latter two threats.

Willerslev took special care to guard against contamination as his group analyzed the sample. Still, these were 4,000-year-old locks, so it wasn't perfect. "We were dealing with very, very short pieces of DNA," Willerslev says. "It was a massive puzzle of 3.5 billion pieces that you have to stick together in the right way."

That puzzle demanded help. Willerslev and his group did the initial analysis in Copenhagen, then shipped samples to labs in the United States, China, Great Britain and Australia; other scientists involved came from Estonia, France and Russia. "It was a huge amount of people involved in piecing all this together," he says.

The group analyzed more than 350,000 of the genome's single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. In modern people, scientists have been able to link these tiny variations in DNA to a number of characteristics, so Willerslev and his group scoured DNA databases for SNPs that Inuk shares with modern people.

The result was an unprecedented level of detail regarding the physical traits, metabolism and genetic predispositions of this ancient man. "I was actually quite surprised at the details we could get out of this," Willerslev says. "I think it's quite amazing that you could say that this guy had dry earwax."

Besides ear wax and skin color, the genetic detective work also allowed the scientists to determine how the Saqqaq relate to other ancient and modern people. They concluded that Inuk's ancestors migrated to the New World from Siberia more than 4,400 years ago. Previously, researchers contended that the Saqqaq people were ancestors of the Inuit and Native Americans of today, but the genetic analysis shows this is not the case. "It was very clear that he's not ancestral to modern people found in the New World," Willerslev notes. "His closest relatives are three Siberian groups."

Inspired by their success with Inuk, Willerslev and his team are now turning to a different continent. He plans to use similar techniques on 150 different ancient hair samples collected from all over South America, some of which date back 8,000 years. This next round of research will again address migration patterns, he says, but the scientists will also be exploring a phenomenon that could hold broader interest. "We're looking into the origin of clothes, and the clothes culture in the Americas."

Scientists Rebuild Iceman Genome From (Very) Old Hair Sample - AOL News

Ms. Julie:

O goodie!:) This sounds nice. I've been away due to everyone around me keeling over. My next door neighbor's wife died (not exactly unexpectedly, but still), my father-in-law had a stroke that has fortunately been more or less fixed by the timely admin of TPA & my new son-in-law's father (his folks were both Navy corpsmen; nice addition to the family) just got admitted for a totally unexpected hypertensive crisis - dude never had blood pressure problems before. Mary & I have been busy for the past three days. I will definitely check this new stuff out. Thanks.

Prof

[rj1]

Raver:

As I understand the sequence of events it went something like this:

Sometime between 16K BP & 12K BP the Agaean overtopped a natural dam separating it from the lake that later became the Black Sea. The salt water cut a deep & narrow channel & began to fill the lake. Anybody hanging around would have been displaced due to the replacement of land with water & of fresh water with salt. This was a major event but at that time (late Pleistocene) there weren't many people to displace. The new body of water stabilised. Several thousand years later (~7.6K BP; early Holocene - that's us) a similar event occurred. It happened at a particularly ripe time for starting all sorts of stuff that actually happened, & would have been an ideal precipitating event. but this one was supposedly much less catastrophic, confined to the western shores of the sea. The geologic evidence for these two events is the presence of beach formations under the water dating to two separate time periods & cores taken from the current mouth of the Danube.

"Current" thinking as of the references that filled me with gloom had the rise in water of the second event being rather slow. That's fine with me. Its smallness was the problem. No one knows how fast the first one flooded its much larger area.

Something that makes me feel a litle better today is that I've found more recent references taking issue with the "small flood" hypothesis. Note the illustration. This is a much larger flood scenario. Note the "C" shaped extention of water on the West. This is about the extent of what I was grumbling about. The event on the map is much larger & perfectly capable of displacing lots people who were by that time settling into communities.

Incidentally, while the depth of ~100M is dead on, the black sea continued to fill slowly due to melt water & rivers to its current depth. It was apparently shallower back in 5600BCE, even after the deluge.

Prof

Interesting thread. I supposedly have some Cherokee heritage in me due to white eastern Kentuckians and Cherokees intermingling over time. Liked to be able to prove it someday but finding records are hard.

Two points for the Prof if he's still around:

1.) Your Black Sea flood event reminded of this: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...rranean-flood/

2.) Has an attempt ever been made to try and draw the borders of the Native American tribes' nations over time to the best of our current knowledge? I think looking at how those developed can help determine if there were multiple pathways or not.

[Roosveltrepub]

Interesting thread. I supposedly have some Cherokee heritage in me due to white eastern Kentuckians and Cherokees intermingling over time. Liked to be able to prove it someday but finding records are hard.

Two points for the Prof if he's still around:

1.) Your Black Sea flood event reminded of this: Mediterranean Sea Saved by Monumental Flood | Wired Science | Wired.com

2.) Has an attempt ever been made to try and draw the borders of the Native American tribes' nations over time to the best of our current knowledge? I think looking at how those developed can help determine if there were multiple pathways or not.

I'd think as stone age peoples it would of probably been fluid. Soiuls wear out so they move, game moves so they move. Humans are still a very mobile animal. Look at all the emmigration/immigration arguments. Someone looses someone moves.

I wonder if they could search for Norse or possibly North African traits in remains 500 to 2500 years old connections found in Eastern Canada.

[rj1]

I'd think as stone age peoples it would of probably been fluid. Soiuls wear out so they move, game moves so they move. Humans are still a very mobile animal. Look at all the emmigration/immigration arguments. Someone looses someone moves.

It's something that would have to be worked backward. "Like, in 1700 it looked like this. In 1600 this group had moved in here. Back in 1500 this group disappeared from the historical record while the Navajo tribes took most of modern-day Arizona from the Aztecs...", etc. Again, that'd be difficult I know. But I think the rise and fall of certain groups, if traced back far enough, might be able to give clues on where they came from.